Centre For Local Research into Public Space (CELOS)
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You are on the [Service Contracts Worksheet One] page of folder [Research Library ]
For the cover page of this folder go to the Service Contracts Worksheet One: Money
Dufferin Grove Park spending comparisons
We figured out (with some help from F.O.I. to get the S.A.P. records) that in 2011 Dufferin Grove Park programming cost the city about $300,000. In 2015 it was more than $455,000. A little summary of why the city's book-keeping may not show all the costs:
The City struggles with central income/expense reporting. Despite the newer FPARS accounting program that cost the city $71 million and counting, there are many mistakes, year after year. In addition, since city management replaced local staff/park friends control of the programming with central control, an extensive FOI search in 2015 showed that the net cost of running the park seems to have gone up steeply. We estimated $455,016 for recreation programs, $112,243 for Park maintenance, and $124,146 for ice rink maintenance, but were unable to track materials-purchasing, central grocery contracts, payroll and revenue data entry, training contracts, etc. One of the three City Auditor directors warned us that the real cost, taking the omissions into account, was probably closer to $1 million. Parks and Recreation management, when asked if the estimates were right, made no response. Our inquiry has given us a baseline, though.
We also have two little narrated slideshows in Youtube about costs, here and here. They were made a few years back and not all of the content is still true now, but it's close enough.
This will be a political struggle rather than one with city management -- they have made it clear where they stand already. So the task is to get this issue into public discussion, but even before that, to get good people to think seriously about what kind of experimentation might actually show us something useful.
September 2015 newsletter: the money story.
Numbers tell a story, although never the whole story. The other thing about numbers is they're slippery things and it's easy to make arithmetic and data entry mistakes. The reader will find such mistakes in both the CELOS reports and the city reports. read more.
Sunshine List for City of Toronto
Extracts from the sunshine lists